Hurricane Isaias is approaching the Gulf Coast, and I’m thinking about the people I know in its path. Friends, former colleagues, and families whose communities have become familiar through years of work and travel.
I call them the Garden & Gun states, with a tip of the hat to my favorite magazine and the Southern life it celebrates. This weekend, I’m praying for their safety.
As of Friday, October 9, 2026, Isaias has reached Category 3 strength. Weather outlets place tonight’s expected landfall near Pensacola, Florida. The broader danger stretches across the western Florida Panhandle and coastal Alabama, with Mississippi also facing hazardous conditions. Pensacola, Destin, Panama City and Mobile should be taking this seriously.
Along the Gulf Coast, preparations need to be finished. Destructive winds, life-threatening storm surge, flooding and tornadoes are all concerns. Heavy rain and strong winds will spread inland Saturday across Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee, with flooding possible in the Appalachians and Carolinas. Rain reaches farther into the Mid-Atlantic Sunday. A forecast can change quickly.
This approaching storm also brings back a consequential October in my own life. Twenty-three years ago this month, I accompanied Dominion Virginia Power’s CEO at the time to Capitol Hill to answer questions about our Hurricane Isabel response.
I spent over 23 years at Dominion Energy and worked seven of the ten biggest storms in the company’s history. Isabel was the biggest in terms of impact to the system.
It arrived in September 2003, marking my first anniversary with the company. Quite an anniversary present.
Isabel came ashore near Drum Inlet, North Carolina, on September 18 as a Category 2 hurricane, after reaching Category 5 strength over the Atlantic. It tore through North Carolina and Virginia, uprooting trees, wrecking power lines and flooding communities.
More than 1.8 million Dominion customers lost electricity. Restoring service across our Virginia and North Carolina territory took 15 days. Some families endured roughly two weeks without power.
Those numbers represent an enormous human undertaking: lineworkers, dispatchers, tree crews, customer service representatives and countless others working to bring ordinary life back.
For me, Isabel also carries a memory that has nothing to do with wind speed.
My paternal grandfather, David Leslie Atkinson, died on September 19, 2003, the day after Isabel made landfall. He was 88 and had been battling leukemia. His death was unrelated to the storm, but the hospital where he was being treated in Williamsburg was operating on backup generators.
In the middle of the restoration effort, I stopped work and went to his memorial service on September 23 in Williamsburg and delivered his eulogy.
I remember that convergence of responsibilities: helping the company communicate through a crisis while saying goodbye to my grandfather. Behind every outage count are people whose lives keep unfolding, including moments that cannot be postponed.
The reckoning continued after the lights came back on.
On October 3, 2003, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to accompany Admiral Jay Johnson, president and CEO of Dominion Virginia Power, when he testified about our storm response before the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform.
Virginia Congressman Tom Davis chaired the committee. The hearing took place in the Rayburn House Office Building: “A Post-Hurricane Reassessment of Emergency Readiness in the Capital Region.”
PEPCO’s president, William J. Sim, was among the other executives at the witness table. I think BG&E was also represented. The committee was examining how the region’s power, water, transportation and emergency systems had performed under pressure.
We all had a lot of explaining to do that day.
Customers wanted answers. So did members of Congress. How had we prepared? Why had restoration taken so long? What would we do better the next time?
Those were fair questions. When you have lived without electricity for days, you deserve more than assurances that everyone worked hard.
The scrutiny and lessons of Isabel helped drive some of the best process improvements and grid hardening I witnessed at Dominion: improving how we responded to storms and strengthening the system against the next one.
I went on to help lead communications and media relations with great teammates through other storms and crisis events. But whenever I see a hurricane approaching the Gulf or East Coast, my mind returns to Isabel, to that first anniversary at Dominion, and to my grandfather’s death.
Here is what I would ask those in this storm’s path to do.
Before: Follow evacuation orders promptly. Charge phones and backup batteries, fuel your vehicle, secure loose outdoor items and gather several days of drinking water, food and medications. Include supplies for pets. Check on older neighbors and anyone dependent on powered medical equipment.
During: Stay away from windows and keep emergency alerts enabled, including overnight. Never drive through flooded roads. Use flashlights instead of candles. Operate generators outdoors, at least 20 feet from the house, doors and windows, with exhaust directed away.
After: Treat every fallen wire as energized. Report outages and hazards to your utility. Return to evacuated areas only when officials permit it. Give restoration crews room to work, and remember that clearing a road or repairing upstream equipment may be necessary before your lights return.
To everyone across our beloved Garden & Gun country: please prepare, look after one another and take the warnings seriously. See you on the other side.
If you have a friend that lives in the hurricane’s swath – send them this story!
